Hello, all. Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it (and to those not, no reason you can'd have fun today, too.) ^_^ I bring you fic, because I'm bored and felt like sharing.

[Title:] Darts
[Rating:] PG
[Genre:] Pre-series genfic, which is a genre now in case it wasn't before
[Characters:] Roy and Hughes
[Word Count:] 5,000
[Summary:] In my mind, I like playing with the different ways Roy and Hughes could have met. This is one of them, though I admit it doesn't fit in the timeline properly or anything useful like that. I just wrote this for fun. And this isn't a summary at all. So here: This is a story about Roy and Hughes, in which they meet over a game of darts. ^_^

In
the early afternoon, the second floor common room of the Amestrian military academy
was usually smoke-filled and noisy, full of State Alchemist hopefuls as they
avoided the unwashed masses of common officer prospects and relaxed between
lectures.They were, almost invariably,
all the starched-collar sons of rich men looking to get a leg up on their
military careers.Alchemy was less a
science to them than a faster way to the fame and glory of a successful
military career.The real alchemists, the only ones who ever
really believed in the mantra of “alchemy for the people” were those that
learned independently and came to the military later for research funding.And even then, their idealism soon cracked
under the research demands made by the military for practical (and often
deadly) application.Such things rarely
crossed the minds of these boys as they smoked their pipes and sat around the
lounge, making alliances and plans to impress the officers who sat in on their
classes.

This
sort of basic manipulation and elbow-rubbing was regarded as a necessary evil
by Roy Mustang.He never enjoyed it, and
often kept to himself, cultivating his aloof image by throwing darts in the corner
of the room.Since it was a hobby he’d
only picked up for stress relief since he’d joined the academy, he was proud of
his proficiency.Already there were very
few alchemists who could beat him when they were bored enough to make idle
challenges.

It
was a younger, more inexperienced alchemist who had latched on to Roy in hopes
of making friends with the others (already a grave oversight and a sign to them
that he would never make it far in the ranks) that hinted to Roy that there was
a formidable opponent to be had in a cocky young officer running what seemed to
be a racket in the pub at night.It
wasn’t until one of the older officers, a few weeks from his second attempt at
the State exam, declared informal war on the pub racket after losing fifty
dollars in a bet that he had reason to face him.Roy was quickly (though not unwillingly) dragged out to be the hero of
the lounge group.He was happy for the
excuse to face the mysterious racket-owner, but wary and overly aware of how
his casual grip of the game was likely to match up to someone skilled enough to
scam the men out of their money at night.It wasn’t long, though, before he formulated a plan that thrilled the
alchemists.

A
few days of heavy workloads had pushed the plan out of Roy’s mind for the
time being until he found himself standing in the light of the pub peering
curiously inside as he passed by on his way back from the library.He’d been there many times before, but never
for long.It was a popular place to pick
up the neighbourhood girls looking for a quick fling with a man in uniform (and
some who were looking to find a husband that would become rich and
powerful.Roy had learned early on how
to avoid them).With a grin he realized
that the research that had kept him in the library might actually have a
practical application tonight.When his
peers had suggested cheating, they probably hadn’t guessed that his new pet
project would be the key.He’d had to
put a lot of effort into not laughing at the younger man who had suggested he
light the darts on fire as soon as they were thrown.The point was not to get caught and to put
the hustler in his place, improving his reputation a little in the process.

Putting
his hand in his pocket, he felt for the familiar piece of paper he always kept
there.He wasn’t sure what purpose it
would ever serve for him in an emergency, since the arrays drawn on it were
rarely practical, but being able to do alchemy at a moment’s notice was
comforting.And, after all, his newest
array for adjusting the concentrations of certain elements in the air might
just be what he needed tonight.He
straightened his jacket and walked into the smoky air of the pub.The atmosphere was immediately different,
full of loud laughing men gathered around pool tables and on questionably
stable chairs, their form of relaxation the total, unpretentious and unabashed
opposite of the men Roy was used to.He found it
strangely welcoming, and before joining the small crowd in the back gathered
around the dart board stopped at the bar for a pint of beer, intending to fit
in at least a little.

He
took a spot somewhat behind the general crowd watching the game.Their occasional shouts in reaction to the
throws passed him by completely.As
someone who had picked up the game in the common room as a matter of boredom,
he had no idea of the finer points of how the players interacted with the
game.Not that leaning against the wall
nursing a beer didn’t already peg him as an outsider.A quick look around told him that the hustler
was likely the tall man in glasses and a black shirt sitting on the edge of a
table near the dart board.He seemed to
alternate his attention between the game and the group of people around him,
presumably discussing bets as money was passed between them.The man in glasses never touched any of the
money himself, though, and Roy was certain that, every once in a while, the man was actually
watching him rather than the man he seemed to be talking to.Roy did not want his attention before he’d had a chance to test his
idea, however, so using a refill as an excuse to scurry away, he returned with
his second drink and carefully positioned himself behind the largest man in the
crowd with just enough room to see the board on the wall.At this point it didn’t matter which of the
random men were playing, only one of them was his concern.And, after all, most alchemists acknowledged
that these lower-level members of the academy weren’t worth worrying
about.These men, short of some uncanny
amount of brilliance, would have to work for years to even make it to the rank
of Major, let alone surpass anyone of their own age among the alchemists.They’d always be subordinates, nothing more.

He
switched his drink to his left hand and put his right hand back into his
pocket, watching the darts as they flew past into the board.Experimentally he tried adjusting the
currents of air around the dart board, making a thin pocket in the air a few
inches in front of the board, hoping it was enough to drop the darts down off
course.From this angle, however, it was
impossible to tell if the changes were having an effect.It was impossible, he also realized, to tell
where the darts would have ended up had it not interfered.He had no idea of how good most of these
people were.The easiest solution to
this, as far as he was concerned, however, was to interfere more.Moving his fingers to a slightly different
array he’d conceived for fun, he tried heating the air around the dart as it
flew.This caused it to take a pleasant
dip in its flight as the air around it became lighter, supporting its flight
less.A little obvious to anyone
watching closely enough, but it would work.He theorized that, from the right angle, he might even be able to steer
the dart.The only disadvantage was
that, starting with the air touching the array in his pocket, every bit of air
on the way to the dart had to be heated, including that in his pocket.He hoped it wouldn’t somehow be obvious to
anyone watching once he had to face the racketeer.Satisfied that he’d had all the practice he
needed, he folded his arms across his chest and moved over slightly to get a
better look at who was playing.It was
still a match between two men that Roy didn’t
recognize, one of which seemed somewhat bewildered that a few of his darts had
fallen to the bottom of the board rather than where he’d aimed.

He
jumped as someone’s hand came down on his shoulder, turning him around from the
game and bringing him face-to-face with the man in glasses.He hadn’t noticed that he’d left the table.

“Yo!”
he said, invading Roy’s personal space and grinning whether he was oblivious to the fact
or not.He would have backed up had he
not remembered that he would have run right into the giant man he’d been hiding
behind.(That, and it would have looked
cowardly.He chided himself that losing
face in this situation wasn’t first in his mind.)“Roy Mustang, I presume?”

“Yes,”
Roy said straight-faced, offering his hand.The man took it enthusiastically, shaking it
only briefly before wrapping his arm around Roy and leading him
around the crowd to the table where he’d been sitting earlier.He waved aside a few men busy taking bets,
and Roy ignored that they were occasionally pointing to him.

“Honestly,
I was expecting you a bit sooner.Didn’t
your guys declare war on me a few days ago?You haven’t been hiding from me, have you?” he joked.

Roy stifled a
derisive snort.

“No.”

“No,
of course not,” the man laughed.“You
lot are always busy in the library.I’m
lucky, for now I can brush up on my work in here.”

“Does
your work ever include introducing yourself properly?”

“Oh!Of course,” he continued unabashedly, his
enthusiasm only wavering for a moment.“I’m sorry, I forgot you’re not a regular around here.The name’s Maes Hughes, though no one ever
uses my first name.They didn’t let you know
who you were going to war against?”

Some
tiny fragment of loyalty kept him from answering the question, though Hughes
continued without him.

“So,
Roy Mustang, are you going to put an end to my tyranny over the dart board
tonight?” Hughes said, grinning as he leaned against the table.“I hope you’ve been practicing.Frankton was bragging left and right that he
was the best you alchemists had up there.”

Finally,
a small spark of loyalty to his peers spurred Roy to speak.

“Is
that why you swindled him out of fifty dollars?”

“As
far as I’m concerned he deserved it.You
don’t make claims like that if you can’t back them up.”Hughes shrugged.“He could afford it, anyway.You lot are rich, but you don’t have any
common sense.It’s probably why you’re
alchemists.”

Roy glared at
Hughes, but his casual, amused grin was too disarming for him to do anything
more.He looked instead over towards the
dart board where a couple of men were making payments on the bets as the two
men gathered their darts.

“Can’t
really argue with that, can you?” he grinned and grabbed two sets of darts from
the table, then corralled Roy into the centre of the crowd of people surrounding the dart
board.

“Gentlemen!”
he began, wrapping an arm around Roy and pulling him awkwardly close.Roy did nothing to hide his annoyance, glaring forward at the
dartboard.Now in the way of all the
attention that had been focused on Roy, however,
Hughes began laying down the rules of the game.Once he had everyone’s attention to himself, Hughes stepped away from Roy under the
pretence of finding out the final odds, giving him a clear view of no small
number of unfriendly stares from some of the men.He turned his attention back to the dart
board, judging the angles and weighing the three darts in his hand while taking
in the house rules as Hughes laid them out.They didn’t sound all that different from those that Roy had learned,
until the final stipulation caused the crowd around them to burst into
laughter.Hughes couldn’t help grinning
when Roy turned to him like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Right…”Roy studied his grin, trying to figure out if he was planning to take
advantage of his loophole, or if he just enjoyed watching him looking
uncomfortable.

“The game’s
cricket.You know I’d lose the toss on
purpose, so we’ll skip it and you can just take first throw.”

Not
sure what to make of his flippant attitude, though certain he didn’t like what
seemed to be some sort of blatant overconfidence, Roy turned to the
dartboard and took aim.

Their
strategies matched nearly move-for move, and soon Roy was forced to
stand with his hands in his pockets between shots.After the first leg, they were as good as
tied, and Roy had a feeling he was being played with.Wrong assumptions could go both ways, though,
and he relished the thought as he retrieved the darts from the board, resolving
to give the game a bit more of an entertaining push next round.

Halfway
through the second round he had inched ahead, and it took every ounce of
self-control he had to avoid building up extra points every time he noticed
Hughes smirking at him.It had to be a
way to unnerve him; he kept watching him out of the corner of his eye, he could
feel it, but every time he turned his eyes to Hughes, the man was smirking at
the dart board.As he interfered with
his shots more and more often, Roy became certain that Hughes was even compensating for the differences.But that was crazy, he assured himself.No one would be able to notice the minute changes that pushed the darts
off course.A normal person would just
think he was having an off night.Hughes’ strange reaction to it was his own problem.What mattered was that he walked away from
this the winner and returned to the lounge the next day as the victor.Hopefully with only one black eye and no
missing teeth, judging by the group of men who’d gathered uncomfortably close
to the board to glare and jeer at him every time one of his shots missed its
mark.

The
game remained close to the very end, as the two tried to close their last
sections.Roy was certain
that Hughes was getting more accurate against his interference, so he redoubled
his efforts, ignoring the fact that the air passing over his hand between the
array and the dart in the air was often getting uncomfortably hot.He wasn’t prepared to admit to himself,
though, that the heckling from some of the onlookers was interfering with his
concentration and control.

In
the end, it came down to the last throw.Roy’s final throw was only a single, and he blamed the fact on the
inopportune and fake (he was certain) cough by one of the men behind him.All Hughes would need to win would be a
double bulls-eye, and, at this point, Roy was sure he’d
hit it no matter how much he interfered.It was hard to deny that the man was good, and he was also
unnerving.If he didn’t interfere, he
might throw it normally and nail the bull’s eye.Roy had the feeling that he’d be able to read whichever decision he
made.Which left him only a final and
extreme try for interference.Even if it
caught him on fire.This time, as Roy watched Hughes
out of the corner of his eye as he threw his final dart his expression remained
serious.As soon as the dart was out of
his hand, Roy followed its flight carefully, and as it neared the board he
concentrated as much energy as he could into the array.The dart seemed to waver for a moment in
midair, then struck the metal and fell to the floor.Roy blamed the faint smell of something burning on the bar’s
atmosphere, but the curious looks from the small crowd made him more than a
little nervous.Maybe he’s
underestimated them a little and been just a tiny bit too obvious.He nearly jumped when a hand landed on his
back.

“Good
game,” Hughes said, his usual grin back on his face.“About time someone beat me.”

He
offered his hand, and without thinking Roy shook it, then
winced when he saw Hughes’ grin turn into a rather amused smirk.He turned his attention to the small group of
men who were slowly inching their way towards the dart board.

“We’ll
collect our own darts, gentlemen,” he said, waving for them to move out of the
way.

“But
he was…” the tallest of the three bent over and reached toward the dart that
had fallen to the ground while the other two glared.Roy paled.Before he could reach
it, though, a knife appeared lodged in the wall a few inches from his head.

“Says
the man who believes in the thirteenth warehouse, Richards.Can you prove it?”

Richards shook his
head, looking doubtful.

“Then no point in
pushing the issue.You can’t cheat at
darts,” Hughes concluded, waving them aside again with an amused look.“Always paranoid, those three.”

With
that, the group of men turned away, presumably to collect on the bets.There were already a few men, a few too many
drinks in them for this early in the night, that were making a point of
flaunting their winnings, having bet on the underdog.Hughes guided Roy towards the
board and began picking up the darts.Roy kneeled on the
ground and picked up the dart that had fallen, turning it over in his hand as
he stood again.

“Don’t
admire your work too long, they’ll get suspicious,” Hughes said, just barely
audible over the bar noise, not turning his attention from the board as he pulled
the last of the darts out.

Roy handed it to
Hughes without another word.

“Well,
Roy Mustang,” Hughes began, this time loud enough for the rest of the men in
the bar to hear.“Your coup was
successful.Can I buy you a drink?”

A
few men laughed as Roy followed Hughes to the bar itself, and someone actually
slapped him on the back, laughing harder when he flinched, still aware of the
few who watched him with unfriendly eyes.When he reached the bar, Hughes already had two pints in hand, and he
nodded towards a dark booth in the corner not far from where the battle of
darts had taken place.Already most of
the crowd had receded, gathering into small groups for games of billiards and disorganized
card games, leaving only a few to play darts.The one Roy had nearly toasted was subtly missing, replaced by one that was a
few shades darker, newer.

After
they sat down, Hughes watched Roy as he took in the rest of the bar, waiting for him to begin the
conversation himself.He was about to
give in and push the man for information himself when Roy finally turned
his attention from the bar and nursing his beer to Hughes.

“You’ve
got good aim,” he said grudgingly.“Are
you training to be a sniper?”

Hughes
laughed and raised an eyebrow at him, and under his gaze Roy felt like he
had something embarrassing stuck to his face.

“Me?A sniper?”He tapped the side of his glasses with his index finger.“You must be a bit more liberal than the guys
up top.I don’t think they’ll ever
realize you don’t need perfect vision to be accurate.Their loss, though.”

Roy paused a
moment, finally seeming to notice Hughes as an actual person, not just someone
he needed to beat.He wondered how he’d
overlooked the glasses.They made him
look a lot more intelligent than he usually gave most of the non-alchemist
recruits credit for.

“Then
what are you in for?” Roy asked, only pausing to question his wording of the question after
it was past his lips.It was usually
only the others that saw the academy as a sort of prison.Then again, none of these men were pampered
the way the alchemists were.He’d hardly
had to hold a gun more than once after safety training.These men were on the practice fields with
live ammunition weekly.

“I’m
dabbling,” he grinned again when Roy tilted his head inquisitively.“Intelligence, if you couldn’t guess.”

“You’re
obnoxious enough for it,” Roy said, regretting the words immediately.He could be a smartass when he outranked the
man and wasn’t in his territory, not before.He glanced at the beer as if he could blame it on that.

“Oh?I’ll take that as a compliment, then, coming
from someone who’s figured out a way to cheat at darts.”

“You
knew?”

“I’m
not stupid,” Hughes said.

“Then
why didn’t you call me out for it?” Roy asked, shifting
uncomfortably in his seat.

“If
I called you out, someone here would take it upon himself to beat the crap out
of you,” Hughes laughed.“Maybe I’d
rather do that myself?”

With
a flick of his wrist, he produced a pack of matches, seemingly from nowhere.The action immediately connected in Roy’s mind with the
knife that had appeared in the wall earlier, and he flinched
involuntarily.Hughes grinned.

“You
smoke?” he asked, flipping the cover of the book of matches.

Roy shook his head.

“No.”

“Me
neither,” he said.“I just keep my lungs
just dirty enough to be able to smoke when I need to.”

Hughes
set the pack of matches down on the table.

“I
was getting tired of the racket anyway.I can’t let myself get predictable yet, people’ll be expecting me to
scam them forever.There’s more I can
learn now by watching how everyone reacts to this.”He paused for a moment, studying Roy.“How’d you do it?”

Roy shrugged.

“Alchemy.”

“I
already said I’m not stupid.There’s not
much use for a specialization in air alchemy, is there?”

“How
do you know?”

“It’s
the most subtle way to interfere with a dart.And I don’t think you were running a fever only in your right hand.”

“It’s
not common for an alchemist to share his research with outsiders…”

“Out
with it, Roy Mustang, or I throw you to the wolves,” Hughes said with a just
hint of a grin, making Roy unsure of how much he was joking.

He reached into
his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper with his array on it.Pushing his glasses up on his nose, Hughes
leaned over the table and peered down at it.

“Well?” Roy asked, after
Hughes had scrutinized it for a good thirty seconds.

“Well what?”

“Do you see how it
works?”

Hughes hesitated,
this time the one looking caught, not wanting to admit his ignorance.

“Actually I
could,” Roy said, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh?”

“Of course, the
force would throw me across the battlefield.”

Hughes raised an
eyebrow.

“Conservation of
momentum,” Roy explained.

“Equal and
opposite reaction… I see.”

He grinned at the
reference.Perhaps some of these men
weren’t so stupid after all.He found
himself slowly finding this intelligence officer somewhat endearing.

“You’re smart, why
aren’t you studying alchemy?”

“Honestly?I haven’t the slightest interest in it.Not everyone who’s smart is smart in math and
science.I much prefer people.”

“At least the
elements stay the same.They make sense.People don’t.”

“Not always.It makes them more of a challenge.”Hughes looked over at the pack of
matches.“And you can’t tell me
everything about alchemy makes sense,” he said, pulling a match from the book
and striking it on the back.“You can’t
tell me someone could predict every time how this match is going to burn.”

Roy considered the
challenge for a moment before responding.

“Maybe not
exactly.There are hundreds of things
affecting the match each time – humidity, the balance of the gases in the air,
air currents… but I can tell you that, unless the match is wet or not a match
at all, it will burn.”

Hughes grinned,
shaking the match to extinguish it as it burned down close to his fingers.It didn’t go out and he gave it a confused
look and dropped it to the table.Before
it hit the surface though, the flame grew and the rest of the match disappeared
in a poof of ash.He turned to Roy, who
moved his fingers from the edge of the array, smirking.

“You didn’t see
that coming?” he asked, not masking his triumphant air.“Oxygen’s highly inflammable.”

“I’ve only known
you an hour.I’ll know next time,”
Hughes laughed, looking down at the array again.“Parlour trick?”

“I can’t say I
haven’t singed the boots of a few people who sat too close to the fireplace in
the lounge,” Roy said.

“That’s all the
fun you have up there?”Hughes laughed
again.“You deserve your reputation as a
bunch of starch-shirted wusses.”

“So all people are
essentially predictable?”

“If
you get to know them well enough.You
see that guy over there?” Hughes continued, pointing to a tall man holding a
pool cue, eyeing his next shot.“My
number one opposition down here.He’s
been waiting for someone to beat me for weeks now.You made him over a hundred dollars
tonight.Notice he’s one of the few
keeping quiet about it, but he’s very happy with you.The guys he’s playing with are close with
him, and though the one on the left secretly bet for me, any one of them’d be
happy to help you out of a jam right now.It’s an amusing thing, loyalty.They like you because you haven’t been loud about this.You’ve got to watch out for the ones like
Jack over there, though.They’re the
frontrunners.If you picked up where I
left off, they wouldn’t bat an eye if I came back and beat you out a few days
later.”

“You’ve
figured all of this out just by watching them?”

“I’ve
been talking to them, too.You’d be
surprised the sort of stories they have to tell.Not that I’ve known of any alchemists that’ve
asked, even when they’re put under their command.”

“What
gives you that idea?” Roy asked, credulously, slightly offended at the constantly slights
Hughes made against the alchemists.

“Look.How often have you been down here?”

“Once
a week?”

Hughes
pointed towards the bar.

“What’s
the bartender’s name?”

“I
don’t know,” Roy said.“That matters?”

“How
long do you usually stay here?Long
enough to pick up a girl, right?”

“Well…”

“I’ve
seen you before, if you’re thinking of denying it.”

“I
wasn’t.”

“That’s
as close as any of you get to mingling with us, unless one of you gets it in
his head that he’s exceptionally amazing and deserves to swindle us out of some
cash.And in that case,” he shrugged,
“we’ve got to put him in his place.You
can tell them by the way they carry themselves.They’re too sheltered to know to hide it.You, you’ve already got a leg up on
them.If Frankton had beat me out, even
fairly, he’d have been out of here with his winnings in a second, bragging to
the rest of you first chance he’d got.You may not have noticed it, but there are already some men here that
hate you a lot less because of that.You’ve got them curious.”

“You’ve
given this a lot of thought,” Roy said, giving Hughes a curious look.It was odd to see someone putting this much thought into something that
wasn’t alchemy.

“Here.How about this?I’m a curious person.You’re going to have some of these men under
your command in a few months, right?And,
knowing you alchemists, your goal’s to climb the ranks.I’ll tell you now, that’s going to be much
easier with a loyal crew, and as a bonus, you’ll annoy your peers by knowing
something they don’t.Of course, they
won’t realize this until they’re all out of the academy and they’ll probably
spend most of the intervening time making fun of you for lowering yourself to
our level, but that’ll be nothing new for you.”

“Hey,
you make it sound like I’m some sort of social reject,” Roy said
defensively.“You are,” Hughes said,
smirking.

“I
was coming back from the library.”

“That’s
not a sign?You didn’t even bring a
second.No one from your side was here
to cheer you on.”

“It
was unplanned.”

“The
guys who came into the bar to pick up women didn’t stay to watch, did they?”

“We
have an exam tomorrow.”

“Ah,
and you’re the only one that can get away with not studying for it.I have connections, Roy Mustang,” Hughes
barrelled on.“You’ve already got a
reputation for being a womanizer and being lazy, yet you’re near the head of
your class in alchemy.Your peers
already dislike you for that, you might as well give yourself an advantage and
make their lives more difficult.”

“Is
this how you make friends, Maes Hughes?By insulting them?”

“Ah,
avoiding the issue at hand.That means
I’m right,” he said with a victorious grin.